I realize the Vortek is not out yet and I’m not even sure if the H2C specs have been released.
I’m trying to figure out what would be the difference in having the Vortek on dual nozzle printer like H2D VS a single like H2S.
Firstly is this even a possibility? Im not sure if the H2C is going to be a single or dual printer.
If the Vortek gives you 6 interchanging nozzles… What would it matter if you have H2D or H2S… Does it just mean 6 colors vs 7 colors?
The H2S would most likely involve the switching out of the single nozzle print head to a dual nozzle print head.
For multi color it would not make much difference between 6 and 7. I think eventually bambu will have a single nozzle Vortek system, whether its an H2S Vortek, or X2C quad nozzle Vortek.
Where the second nozzle comes in handy is multi-material printing when one of the filaments is not AMS compatible eg: TPU + PETG, TPU + PLA supports or PET/PPA/PPS + dedicated support material.
I think it will make quite a big difference having 7 - as well as being handy for tricky materials the L<>R nozzle swaps are likely to be a lot quicker than the Vortex1-6 nozzles.
And for prints with big sections of only 2 colours there will be no AMS moves / tool drop offs / pick ups or reheating required.
Its also going to require switching out the heatbed, and most likely the power supply aswell as the S has a lower wattage PSU than the D does
Not to mention that with the toolhead being wider you will also likely need to replace the XY belts as there is a length difference between them
You can watch the reveal trailer, its a dual nozzle toolhead as the vortek loads in to the right hand nozzle
No difference whatsoever, since Vortek would change only the right nozzle in H2D anyway…
On the question of Vortek… I legit don’t get it. It’s not a toolchanger, it’s a nozzle swap system (with huge IMO compromises). You still have to wait for AMS to retract and push in new filament, you still have to wait for a nozzle heat up. All it’s going to do - save you the poop. … at what cost? By looking at the video, the upgrade kit would be huge and invasive to the point that it would be a huge upfront cost that the majority of the users would likely not even be able to recoup even in a long run.
(Someone do a calculation of the poop cost over time)
Retract doesn’t take very long if the filament path is well optimized. And it can do this:
cut → retract & swap nozzle and heat up → feed filament to toolhead → wait until nozzle reaches temp and feed to nozzle
this saved quite a lot of time for multi color. but not very useful if you’re only using two tones or filaments.
Vortek is just poopless color printing.
That is just a copium that you wish it to be. No offense, but it can’t be read differently when you guess and say “saved quite a lot of time”.
The longest two items during the AMS filament swaps are:
Change of the filament (retraction and insertion) and nozzle purge.
You replace nozzle purge with heating up process, that is the only difference between Vortek and regular swap. Maybe you can save a second or two? But it’s nothing substantial, since induction heating is not as efficient as a direct contact heating (it will be longer to heat up than the current H2D nozzle heating).
On the other hand - I would understand if Bambu would introduce the simultaneous retraction during the filament swap, however they never did it in all previous years with X1 and H2 (cut and start retracting immediately. Instead it was cut → go in chute position and only then retract it. So I don’t see it doing differently).
Heating up takes less than 10 seconds with induction heating, i don’t know who told you induction heating is not as efficient as direct contact heating but that’s outright wrong by a lot. Trident heats up from room temp to 250C within 4 seconds.
Purge often takes more than 30 seconds, combined with ams retraction and extrusion which usually takes ~10 - 20s.
With vortek you all these would happen within that 10-20s retraction and extrusion process.
You don’t have to wait for retraction or heating up. You can just cut, retract and do everything else at the same time including swapping and heating up again. Cut then go to chute happens very quickly anyway, wouldn’t mind that.
It’s called physics. You are welcome.
But that’s not Ino Trident that costs more than the whole Bambu A1 printer. It’s like bringing into a car drag race a multimillion jet plane. And yeah, 4 second heat up is for a 120W 48V system… kinda chill down dude haha. Bambu can’t do that.
… yet cutting and immediate retracting was never implemented on previous printers. It would have saved additional 1-2s per swap. Why do you think Vortek would be different?
Also correct me if I wrong, but Bambu never even claimed that it would be faster? All they claimed that it would be a poopless printing. To which I raised the logical question of ROI of that upgrade. You don’t have to think further than that, and given that there are no track records of Bambu speeding up filament swaps (quite contrary as H2 is slower at that compared to X1) I don’t think it will be the case.
My guess based on frame by frame reviewing of a few h2d tool changes is that flush/purge takes around 76 seconds (depending on flush lengths).
I am hoping for an around 72 second saving per Vortek colour change when/if BL choose to optimise the nozzle swap / AMS process.
Although I would not want them to compromise reliability or print quality.
See my expected timing comparison table / video on @dwuk3d youtube.
My guess based on frame by frame reviewing of a few h2d tool changes is that flush/purge takes around 76 seconds (depending on flush lengths).
I am hoping for an around 72 second saving per Vortek colour change when/if BL choose to optimise the nozzle swap / AMS process.
Although I would not want them to compromise reliability or print quality.
See my expected timing comparison table / video on @dwuk3d youtube.
Realistically it’s more like 40-50s saving
that’s what bambu said, and bambu claimed a 8s heating up time
X2C with 4-way vortek would be sick though, maybe a toolhead camera as well instead of the over-priced Bambu micro-LiDAR.
There are some things to take in note for H2D vs H2S vortek. The H2C has a dual-extruder toolhead, so for the people buying the printer itself will have the same experiences with an H2D with vortek and will have all of the extra benefits the H2D has, such as the nozzle camera, the larger power output, and the side windows. I did not expect there to be a H2S vortek… I thought that the smaller power output for the H2S wouldn’t be able to power the induction-heating system, but its probably good enough.
Last thing I have to say, if you REALLY want to print with color, so much so that you’d get the Vortek system, I’d think the H2D with vortek is a better option, even though its only one extra nozzle, only one extra camera, and much faster toolchanging and you load the left extruder with the most often swapped filament, it is definitely a better machine. Is it worth the price though? I don’t think so… not unless Bambu makes the price for the H2D by itself lower, which I would expect them to do when the H2C is released. Maybe we might even get to hold onto the black Friday sales for H2D forever
Physics tells me resistance heating is 100% efficient in generating heat, but not 100% of the heat goes into the workpiece. Induction heating has other losses, but still the conversion efficiency can be very high in properly designed systems, maybe even 90%. But induction has the advantage in that it is only heating the workpiece so the net efficiency in induction heating systems can be higher than through indirect resistance heating.
So… you do realize there is a thing called silicone sock on hotends to minimize thermal radiation?
You do realize that H2C either doesn’t have the sock applied (and has thermal losses because of that) or does have a sock and then induction heating is even less efficient?
Induction heating heats up only conductive materials within the heater coil location. It does not prevent typical thermal losses from the material loosing heat (either through material conduction or radiation).
On the other hand, steel would be one of the best materials for induction, while steel for resistive heating would be one of the worst ones.